


Sight

by All0doxaphobia



Series: The Five Senses [1]
Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, but here we are, but make it romantic, it was supposed to be platonic, okay, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:22:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All0doxaphobia/pseuds/All0doxaphobia
Summary: Sometimes even artists struggle to capture the essence of beauty. Especially in themselves.
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair & Kieran White, Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Series: The Five Senses [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091663
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Sight

Is there such a thing as a blind artist? One could argue that a person cannot make beautiful what they cannot see. Furthermore, what qualifies a person as “blind”?  
Lauren knows firsthand the many facets of blindness and being robbed of sight beyond your nose. She knows what it’s like not being able to see beyond her own hurt, not being able to see the world beyond what it is: cruel, unforgiving, a spiteful mistress that spits in the lap of those still shackled to naivety.  
But Kieran… Kieran, in the flurry of chaos and acrylic, shows her that art and hope are not interpreting the world as it is, but capturing in the mind all it could be. It was Kieran who showed her the glimmer of a smile on a bridge when all she could remember is the grimy stone walls and frosted breaths. It was Kieran who breathed life into every story he told across a canvas, a flurry of chaos and art where he resided somewhere in the perfect medium.

The same man who showed her how to see the beauty in a broken world is the same man now hunched over a sketchpad in distress. The same man she made the mistake of requesting a self-portrait from. Lauren approached him softly, fingers tugging at the edges of wrinkled paper stained in heavy charcoal that smeared on her own fingers.  
“Is this supposed to be you?” She asked, the breath stolen from her lungs as she took in all the sharp, jagged lines, and hard set of a wiry mouth, the lifelessness of greyed eyes. This isn’t him. “Kieran, you look like a-” Her words died on her tongue as she realized this blur of lacquer and varnish, this spill of ink across white is how he sees himself, as sharp as shattered glass, yet dull where it matters most. “It’s too harsh.”

“I’m a harsh man, Lauren,” He quirked a mirthless grin, that slipped off his face far too easily. “I don’t know what you expected from me.”  
Lauren tightened her grip on the “portrait,” crisp white edges folding and crinkling under her grip. “I expected more than what I’m seeing.” she sighed, pressing the paper into his desk before she bunched it up in all its wrongness and threw it away. She wanted to show him something first.  
“What do you want to see, then?” He drawled, raising an eyebrow, his back pressed against the wood in an artificial display of nonchalance, but was there really a point when she could see the tension in his shoulders, the wariness in his eyes as she drew closer until she was just brushing his side, leaning over him to point out the cut of his face.  
“I want to see more than these jagged edges. I want to see more blue in your eyes than grey, I want-” She falters before she can finish.  
Because what does she want, really? All she can focus on is what she doesn’t want. She doesn’t want this stain of black that seems to swallow up all the color around it. She doesn’t want his face to look so severe, so cutthroat, because it isn’t him. She doesn’t want his face to fall every time she watches him look at this picture. She doesn’t want him to live his life thinking his sharp edges is all he’ll ever be.

But what does she want to see? Maybe she wanted to see what she saw in him.

“And what is it that you see in me?” He whispered, too quiet to be him, and she realizes she’d said it out loud. And she realizes she isn’t ashamed her words couldn’t fit in her own head. She continued to stare down at the picture, collecting her thoughts.  
Lauren never considered herself much of a poet. However she found when you spend most of your life living in your own head, you begin to work to make your horrid thoughts sound prettier.

It was looking at this portrait, this affront to all she knew about Kieran White that she finally let her thoughts unfurl, and let herself consider all the ways she saw him.  
Kieran White was a figment of shadows and mirrors, a trick of the light that slipped through your fingers if you let your eyes wander elsewhere.  
He was a master of artifice, a thief who stole more than the clothes off your back and the coins from your pockets, but the beat of your heart and the swell of your lungs as they filled with your final breath.  
He was a creature of the night, and yet…

And yet the man she was describing was not the man who was gazing at her right now, all wide eyes and pinched lips as he waited for her answer.

The Kieran White she knew was an artist. No, not an artist- a painting.  
Kieran White is harsh, yes, but evenly blended beneath the brush held by the hand of one who pours their soul into all they create, the smear of charcoal beneath your thumb to soften the sharp edges.  
He is inevitable, as the first beam of sunlight that breaks through the smoky grey of the storm.  
He is the stained glass windows of a chapel and the way the sunlight carries a spill of color across your skin, a comforting kaleidoscope that envelopes you like the first breath of spring air after millennia of winter.  
He is the beckoning of the future where one is stuck in the past, A smile on a bridge and a hand on your shoulder. Lingering in the back of your mind, ever-present. He waits for your in the forever, for forever, as long as you need him to be until you need him. The artistry of sorrow isn’t nearly so powerful as the beauty of hope.

She pursed her lips together. None of this could ever fit on a canvas. It could barely fit on a page, and yet… He deserved more than silence. He deserved more than the faltering of a woman who doesn’t know her own heart yet.  
So she took a deep breath, turning her eyes to the man before her. Her partner. Her friend. Her other half.  
She opened her mouth and she said:

“You’re so much more than your shadows, Kieran.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kieran brings out the beauty Lauren couldn't see in the world.  
> Lauren brings out the beauty Kieran can't see in himself.
> 
> I think that, while I enjoy every moment where Kieran calls Lauren beautiful in fics, Kieran deserves a little bit of that same energy in return, and so this is just the manifestation of that.  
> I'm also really vibing with poet!Lauren right now and I wanted to punch out an artsy monologue about Kieran.
> 
> Just remember folks: I am no poet. I'm just a slightly literate simp.  
> Thank you all for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it!


End file.
